OFFSHORE: The lead-up
to the Easter long weekend was a bit wet, wild and wooly with fresh to strong
(18 to 25 knot) easterlies and heavy rain pelting the coast until Friday
lunchtime. By Saturday morning, though, it was as if it never happened with
the winds going from moderate, to light, to almost zilch today.
With conditions improving virtually overnight the outer reefs were on the
agenda from Saturday onwards. The Hards were worth a look and those who
made the effort reported snapper, pearl perch, A.J.'s, venus tusk fish and
coronation trout on the bite. The only report from the Barwon Banks was
from Coolum angler Ben Steinhardt (above) who fished there on Saturday night
and boated venus tuskers, coral trout, a Mozambique bream and this 13kg+
red emperor.
North Reef produced a variety of species with yellowfin tuna and Spanish
mackerel leading the charge. James Dark from Darwin (above) boated his 15kg+
yellowfin on Tuesday's Wild
Thing 2 charter while Shane Cory, Lee Cory and Justin Robertson
from Brisbane (below) got into the Spaniards on Sunday.
Other species on the bite out that way were; sweetlip, snapper, spotted
mackerel, moses perch, cobia, Maori cod, striped sea perch, mowong, venus
tusk fish, jewfish, pearl perch, teraglin jewfish and lots of juvenile red
emperor. Damien Long from Perth (below) boated his jewie on Sunday's Trekka
2 charter.
Also on the middle reef belt, Massoud's Reef was certainly worth a few pick
drops. Trekka
2 fished there on Sunday afternoon for pearl perch, moses perch,
teraglin jewfish, cobia and scarlet sea perch. Lleyton Hawkes from Rockhampton
(below) is pictured with the standout from that half day trip, an 8kg cobia.
Closer in, Sunshine Reef was the spot for spotted mackerel, sweetlip, mack
tuna, coral trout, yellowfin tuna, squire, venus tusk fish and the odd Spaniard.
In Laguna Bay the catch was northern bluefin tuna, mack tuna and yellowfin
tuna. Chris Locke from Davo's
Tackle World (inset above) and his buddy Tim Milat fished Jew
Shoal and off the headland on Monday for four YFT's and a longtail. Tim's
standout was a 20kg (est) yellowfin. They got them casting hard body surface
lures. This morning most of the action was along the Hall's Reef stretch
where the longtails were responding to cast slugs and trolled HB's.

We didn't have room for all of the
offshore photos but if you click on any of the small photographs directly
above, you can view the extra pix in a slideshow.